Has Hamas-tied CAIR busted a spleen over this yet? In an effort to cut off funds to Somali terrorists, banks in Minnesota will no longer support Islamic money transfers called “hawalas.” Al Shabaab receives much of its funding through hawalas.
What took so long?
Meanwhile the UN is seeking 1.5 billion dollars for 'famine relief' for the jihad statelet of Somalia. We have no famine, says Somalian prime minister. The world’s aid agencies have become “lords of poverty” and their claim that famine has struck Somalia’s capital is “absolutely” false, according to Abdiweli Mohammed Ali, the country’s prime minister.
Minnesota banks to stop money transfers to Somalia Homeland Security News
In an effort to cut off funds to Somali terrorists, banks in Minnesota will no longer support money transfers via local businesses called “hawalas”; Minnesota has the largest concentration of Somalis in the United States and officials fear that money sent from relatives living in the United States could be funding terrorist groups like al Shabaab
Al Shabaab receives much of it's funding through halawas // Source: tigraionline.com
In an effort to cut off funds to Somali terrorists, banks in Minnesota will no longer support money transfers via local businesses called “hawalas.”
Minnesota has the largest concentration of Somalis in the United States and officials fear that money sent from relatives living in the United States could be funding terrorist groups like al Shabaab.
On 15 December, Franklin Bank, the last remaining bank to support hawalas, will discontinue its wire services to Somalia, which has Somalis in Minnesota panicking. Without hawalas Somalis worry that their families in their home country will have no way of supporting themselves.
Somalia’s financial infrastructure is largely inexistent and many families there depend on remittances from relatives living abroad to survive. To make matters worse, Somalia is currently experiencing one of its worst famines in history.
“This is going to have a massive negative effect on Somali, Kenyan, and Ethiopian populations who are facing one of the worst recorded famines and droughts in recent history,” said Aden Hassan, a spokesman for the Somali American Money Wiring Association
The CIA estimates that Somalia receives roughly $1.6 billion in remittances each year from around the world.
According to Hassen, sending money through hawalas is relatively easy for individuals, but banks who execute the transfers must complete a complicated series of steps to comply with federal standards to ensure that funds are not being sent to terrorist groups there.
New financial regulations were put in place following the 9/11 attacks to crack down on funding to terrorist organizations, which resulted in Wells Fargo, U.S. Bank, and TCF from dropping its support to hawalas.
In Minnesota, Sunrise Community Banks, a local family owned bank which runs Franklin Bank, began working with the Somali community to service hawalas three years ago, but made its most recent decision to end their relationship due to several recent incidents where individuals in the United States were arrested for financing al Shabaab using the hawala system.
In October two Somali women living in Rochester, Minnesota were convicted of funneling money to al Shabaab using hawalas. The two women were accused of going door to door in an effort to raise funds for the terrorist organization. Meanwhile, earlier this month, a woman in San Diego pled guilty to sending money to al Shabaab fighters using hawalas.
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